This invention pertains to a system for handling and manipulating structural building-frame components, also referred to herein more simply both as building components, and as components, during the construction of a building frame, and in particular to such a system which promotes simple, efficient, precision-handling and precision-alignment construction performance through providing uniquely configured, and cooperatively interactive, lug, clasp, and guide-socket system elements that enable special, dual-mode, and selectively, task-sequential, invention practices involving structural-building-component (a) picking, (b) transporting, (c) positional placing, and (d) component-above-component, aligned stacking for the stack-registry joining of two vertically organized components, and additionally, (e) vertical-registration installing of component-preassembled building-frame modules, also referred to as building modules.
Each of the terms “building-frame component”, “building component”, and “component”, as used herein, refers inclusively, but not exclusively, to columns, to ground-support, pedestal-like structures that support the bases of columns, and to unitized, building-frame pre-assemblies of columns and beams that are to be incorporated in an under-construction building frame. The terms “module”, “building-frame module”, “building module”, and the like, are used herein interchangeably to refer to unitized, building-frame pre-assemblies of columns and beams.
A preferred embodiment of, and manner of practicing, the invention are illustrated and described herein in relation to the fabrication of a steel-component building-frame assembly which is, essentially, being readied for ultimate, on-site, ground installation, formed with preliminarily-employed, column-base ground supports, with columns supported on such supports and on other columns, and with preassembled, underlying-frame-installable building modules. Illustrative handled components discussed and pictured herein include the mentioned preliminarily-used, column-base ground supports (also referred to herein as ground supports for columns), individual columns, and preassembled building-module assemblies. The elements and features of the invention are described particularly in relation to the handling of these three categories of structural building components with respect to which the invention has been found to offer particular utility. We recognize, of course, that other specific kinds of building components, such as beams, outrigger worker scaffolding, and things, may also be handled by the system of the invention.
In the system of the present invention, the key inter-cooperative system elements include (1) a specially shaped, body-of-revolution lug which is referred to as being a dual-mode, sequential-task, pick and stack-registry lug, (2) a clamshell-like releasably lockable clasp which is engageable with this lug with the lug operating in its pick mode of behavior, and (3) guide-socket structure, or a guide socket, which is includable, or formed (as will be explained in the setting of a column) in the base of a component to be handled—typically a column—to enable guided, stack-registry lowering of such a component, poised as an overhead component, onto the top of an underlying component for mounting thereon, and specifically a lowering which involves guided, and if needed cammed (i.e., guided sliding contact), reception in the socket structure of a lug made in accordance with the invention anchorably attached appropriately to the top of the underlying component, and functioning in its pick-registry mode of behavior.
Accordingly, from one point of view, the invention features a building-component handling system including:                (1) a unique, dual-mode, sequential-task, pick and stack-registry lug, having a body of revolution with a specially shaped, combined-utility, (a) grasp-and-capture, and (b) registry-camming, profile, anchorably attachable to the top of a selected, structural building component for performance with that component in either one, or both sequentially, of its two, designed-for, operational task modes—picking and stack registering;        (2) a generally clamshell-style, releasably lockable clasp having openable and closeable, somewhat ladle-shaped clasp portions adapted to receive, in a clasp-open condition, and to close, in a clasp-closed condition, collaboratively and capturingly upon the lug profile under operational circumstances with the lug anchorably attached to a selected structural building component, and then functioning in what is referred to as the “pick”, “picking”, or “pick handling” category of its dual-mode capability; and        (3) a guide socket structure included in the base of an “overhead” structural building component, shaped for camming reception of the registry-camming, profile of the lug, with the lug then functioning in what is referred to as the “stack-registry”, or “stack-registering”, category of its dual-mode capability, to accommodate overhead stacking registry of two structural building components, and specifically respecting the lowering, for mounting, of an overhead component onto the top of an underlying component.        
This point of view especially, though not exclusively, focuses on individual component pick and stack-registry handling, where the term “pick” is employed herein to “cover” several, associated activities, including lug grasping and picking up of a selected building component, and then transporting, maneuvering and positionally placing that component where it is intended to go. Stack registry refers to precision vertical alignment of a picked, overhead component, and a second, underlying component, through camming engagement between a lug anchored to the top of the underlying component and a guide socket furnished in the base of the overhead component, to promote precision placement of the overhead component on top of the underlying one as a component-on-component mounting precursor. The phrase dual-mode as applied to the system lug reflects the facts that this lug is designed to operate in both (1) a pick mode and (2) a stack-registry mode. The concept referred to as sequential-task, or variously as task-sequential, relating to the system lug, is associated with the situation that a lug first employed in its pick mode with respect to a handled building component and the clasp of the invention, is thereafter, i.e., in a sequential manner, employed in its stack-registry mode in cooperation with a system guide-socket structure furnished in the base of an overhead component to align the two components for stacked, vertical assembly.
In relation to the handling, for installation in a frame structure, such as an under-construction, ground-supported portion of a structural building frame, of a preassembled building module including interconnected columns and beams, the invention proposes a combined building-frame construction project, and an associated, structural-component handling system which is functionally involved in the project, which, in operative conditions with respect to one another, and relative to a particular fabrication stage in the project, include                (1) a ground-supported structural building frame assembly having a portion possessing a defined pattern of elongate, upright columns with tops and central, upright axes, readied to have lowered to and stack-mounted on it a preassembled, overhead frame module,        (2) a dual-function, pick and stack-registry lug having a central axis anchored to the top of each column in the ground-supported frame portion with the lug's central axis aligned with the central axis in the column to whose top it is anchored, poised to function for promoting stack registry in the project with respect to a lowered-for-mounting preassembled, overhead frame module,        (3) a preassembled frame module intended for overhead mounting on the ground-supported frame portion possessing a pattern of elongate, upright columns exactly matching the column pattern present in the ground-supported frame potion, with the columns in the frame module having bases and tops, and respective, central, upright axes, and with the frame module, in relation to the mentioned, particular fabrication stage in the project, poised overhead the ground-supported frame portion,        (4) a pick and stack-registry, lug-reception socket furnished in the base of each column in the frame module, and having a body of revolution with a central axis centered on the long axis of that column, and adapted guidingly to receive a pick and stack-registry lug anchored to the top of an underlying column in the ground-supported frame portion on appropriate lowering of the frame module toward the ground-supported frame portion,        (5) an elongate, pick and stack-registry lug of the type described above anchored to the top of each column in the frame module, employed to function for picking in the project with respect to accommodating holding and maneuvering of the frame module,        (6) associated with each lug which is anchored to the top of a column in the frame module, a clamshell-style clasp positively, securely, and releasably clasping the lug for cooperative pick handling of both the associated column and the overall frame module containing the column, and        (7) maneuverable cable suspension structure, appropriately and operatively connected to each clasp, operable to maneuver the frame module to a position overhead the ground-supported frame portion wherein the columns in the frame module are all precisely aligned with the columns in the ground-supported frame portion, and with such alignment achieved, to lower the frame module to a condition of gravity-seated stack registry relative to the ground-supported frame portion through stack-registry engagement between the lugs associated with the latter and the lug-reception sockets associated with the former.        
The term “upright” as used herein in references made to the “central axes” of various building structures and system elements is meant to refer to the conditions of these axes under circumstances where the associated structures and elements are in their intended spatial orientations.
These and other features and advantages offered by the present invention will become more fully apparent as the detailed description of it which now follows is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The various structural elements, their proportions, and the positional relationships seen between them, presented in these drawing figures are not necessarily drawn to scale. Further, various structural components which are introduced in the discussion below, and which reference-numeraled in certain “earlier-discussed” drawing figures, where they appear as identical structures in the settings pictured in “other, later-described” drawing figures, will be identified herein with the same reference numerals.